KaOS 2021.10 Is Here as One of the First Linux Distros to Ship with KDE Plasma 5.23 Desktop

KaOS 2021.10

The developers behind the rolling-release KaOS Linux distribution released today KaOS 2021.10 as an updated installation and live media for the month of October 2021 featuring the latest KDE Plasma desktop environment.

In celebration of KDE’s 25th anniversary, the KaOS developers release KaOS 2021.10 with the latest and greatest KDE Plasma 5.23 desktop environment series, which also landed today. This makes KaOS one of the first GNU/Linux distributions to ship with KDE Plasma 5.23, following close on the heels of KDE neon.

Therefore, if you want to install and use the KDE Plasma 5.23 desktop environment on your personal computer right now, you can either download the KDE neon 20211014 release if you like Ubuntu-based distributions, or KaOS 2021.10 if you want an Arch Linux-inspired but independent distro. Both offer a rolling-release model where you install once and receive updates forever, including new KDE Plasma versions.

As expected, the KDE Plasma 5.23 desktop environment in the KaOS 2021.10 release is accompanied by the latest KDE Frameworks 5.87 and KDE Gear 21.08.2 software suites so you can enjoy the most recent KDE apps. Of course, all these apps are compiled against Qt 5.15.3, but Qt 6.2 LTS is also included to provide users with a future-proof operating system.

Under the hood, the KaOS 2021.10 release is powered by Linux kernel 5.14.11 and ships with some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies, including systemd 249.4, Coreutils 9.0, Mesa 21.2.3, Sudo 1.9.8p2, Bison 3.8.2, Vulkan 1.2.195, NetworkManager 1.32.12, Udisks 2.9.4, cURL 7.79.1, and Pacman 6.0.1.

KaOS’ default installer Calamares has been updated as well in this release, now featuring a new bootloader selection module that lets users select between systemd-boot, rEFInd or no bootloader when installing KaOS on UEFI systems, an interactive keyboard preview in the Keyboard Setup page, and a QML version of the License page.

You can download the new KaOS release right now from the official website or by clicking the direct download link below. Existing KaOS users don’t have to download the new ISO image to keep the installations up to date, but only to run the sudo pacman -Syu command in a terminal emulator.

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